Uptick in OTA reservations?

[GoodScout]

Anyone noticing an uptick in OTA reservations this summer? (please, no "we don't use OTAs and here's why" posts).

OTAs are usually between 4 to 8% of our bookings during the summer, which we accept as a way to bring new customers to learn about us, and fill in slower times. But in the past two months they've jumped to 13.3%. That's too high, and I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing that.

 

[Arks]

I've noticed that my reservations through Air, which have always been 5% of my reservations, have been 10% this year.

 

[TheBeachHouse]

Our percentages are way different. About 65 direct, 35 ota. We are seeing more direct, but we think that’s due to the big sign in each room saying, shop small, book direct, and the rising percentage of repeat guests. Your numbers tell a very different story. Our guests are about half regulars and half tourists seeing this town for the first time.

 

[Generic]

It's very hard for me to tell, because I give them so limited a set of rooms in the summer. I will say that BK did better this year than X, which isn't usually the case. X booked 54 room nights in the last 90 days and BK is 79 in the last 90 days. But I really just give them the "holes" to fill. I have 6 reservations on the books from OTAs... and I have 11 room nights to sell until the 8th of September. None until 29th of August. And we had one single reservations through Air this year and they cancelled. I'm not competitive on Air and if I followed their suggested price, I would be making 25c on the dollar.

Though, I do get a laugh from their marketing to me, sometimes. BK sends me these stupid "opportunities" and I look at it and laugh

Average daily rate: 190/199 (yours versus similar properties)
Availability: 3.41% / 51.79%
Cancellations: 23.82% / 46.41%
Conversion: 0.47% / 2.26%
Ranking 11.29% / 21.86%

So... what you are saying is that my little place is 97% booked, hardly anyone cancels but I could make $9 more per room with half my rooms empty? What is this really supposed to mean? Of course my conversion rate is low... I have just 5 rooms. And yet, when I do have rooms available for dates, I'm always listed near the top as a "Top Pick".... so the ranking statistic is based on days without regards to if I have anything available on those dates.

It's almost as bad as the AIr scraping websites that say that I hardly sell anything at all... sure, because you can't tell that I've sold it directly.

I'm very glad that I have MyA inbetween, so I can edit what goes to the OTAs, rather than have a direct connection and not being able to. Now, if I could only get John to make a honeypot for when X and BK try to scrape my reservation system